Even Gods Bleed
by Amledo
Summary: Even if you are a god in your own eyes, you still bleed. Joker nearly pays for this revelation with his life. Batman/Joker or Bruce/Jack. T for blood and the relationship


(A/N: I don't own Batman. Sorta slash, more just shounen-ai.)

Even Gods Bleed

For lack of a better word, his breathing was ragged. He labored for every breath, always mindful of the splintered rib that could make any sip of oxygen his last. Sweat from over-exertion streaked down his face, running his stage paint burningly into his eyes, obscuring his vision with a haze of tears. It seemed abundantly clear that his time on the Earth, in the playground Gotham was going to be over in the very near future. Even his iron determination couldn't save him if his lung chose to rupture as he ran full tilt away from his pursuers.

Somehow he had lost his touch, or more likely, Scarecrow, the twit, had fed some new chemical concoction to his men. Never before had the Joker seen an army of mindless goons cook up a coup so quickly. Needless to say, he hadn't thought that he needed to worry about it as none of them had a survival timeline that exceeded two months in his mind. It was his policy to never allow anyone to live long enough to entertain thoughts of rebellion.

The only person outside of the Bat that he had formed any sort of relationship with had been Harley. The poor broken Miss Quinzel had been easy to seduce and indoctrinate. But, even she, faultlessly trusting and eager to please, had to be eliminated. It had been nothing to kill her, and he had given her the courtesy and the intimacy of strangulation, his eyes on hers the entire time. Perhaps it was her death that had triggered thoughts of rebellion in his lackeys, and he would take such things into consideration in the future, if he had one at any rate.

Blood loss was becoming a factor, he felt sluggish as he ran. It was almost like sloughing through wet sand though the ground he traversed was merely cracked pavement with no more hindrance than a stray scrap of garbage. His lungs burned and it seemed a vice had been fixed around his heart, forcing it to beat much more rapidly with severely reduced pressure. All of it caused his head to spin in a disorienting fashion which did nothing to help the already complicated situation of his face paint obscuring his view of where he was running to. It was completely unsurprising when he felt his left foot pulled entirely out from beneath him.

As he fell, he understood what was going to happen; it came as a flash of insight so rapid that the world may as well have stopped. Then it happened. He smacked into the pavement with all the redirected inertia of his run and felt the blinding pain and instant lost of breath. It was more than a simple matter of having the wind knocked out of him; the shattered rib had finally sliced through his lung. He felt it. What little breath he had was spent coughing up a fine mist of his own blood.

Unceremoniously (and quite painfully) he was dragged into an alley way, and thrown on the other side of a Dumpster, out of the line of sight of any that might still be after him. Eyes hardly capable of focusing past the grease paint and the overwhelming urge to faint, he managed to catch a glimpse of blackness and pointed ears. The Bat would not be happy knowing the damage he'd just caused, but the Joker had no voice to tell him. He gave up.

The smell of sterility was the first thing he noticed as he attempted to come back to himself. He was sluggish and giving in to the all consuming blackness seemed like the most incredible idea ever. But he rebelled. Fixing on the smell of bleach, antiseptic and cheap air freshener he tried to cement himself in the waking world.

After what felt like an eternity of steadily inhaling the choking scent of 'clean' a distant sound of beeping began to fill his ears. It was far away and sounded like it was coming from under water. The only other sound that he could comprehend was music, something he couldn't make out that sounded mildly 50's-ish. But he couldn't hear it quite right, the music sounded like it was coming from an exceedingly aged radio and was echoing its way down a metal hallway, all very tinny and lacking bass.

He clung on to anything that would ground him, any little detail that might pull him out of his dim foggy world. The bitter taste of old blood and plastic made his too dry tongue ache for water all the more. But it was one thing that let him know that he was alive. He had died before and taste had never been something that he could pinpoint.

As his senses came back to him he was disappointed that the numbness had to leave. There wasn't pain, but he knew that he was medicated, and he knew very well that such a thing meant his body must have been in deplorable condition. It wasn't so much that nothing could reach him, he felt pressure in the places where pain ought to be, and he had a sense of soreness, but it was all tolerable. He felt almost like there was a weight resting on his chest, pressing down marginally harder as he drew breath. But the sensation that he couldn't understand, the one that confused him the most was the warm pressure that surrounded his right hand. It was different from the areas of pain.

When at last he understood, his eyes snapped open in shock and amazement, it was a hand, clasping his, clinging to him. For a long moment he stared blankly at the hand holding his, pale and soft and delicate, yet filled with so much strength. He allowed his still slightly hazy gaze to travel up an arm clad in the unbuttoned wrinkled sleeve of a blue dress shirt, to a broad set of shoulders and up to the face of a sleeping middle aged man.

It was a beautiful face, barely touched by age, with slight creases at the corners of the closed eyes (which the Joker knew were blue), worry lines lightly pressed into the pale and smooth forehead, and the things he recognized most were the frown lines. At the moment, they were normal men, and though his view was from a hospital bed, he quite liked the look of it. Letting out a sigh of relief at the recognition he allowed his eyes to take in the disheveled state of longer-than-he-remembered-it brown hair.

It wasn't that the situation was new, Bruce had been bailing him out of his mistakes for the last few years, but the way it gripped his heart was definitely unfamiliar. The very sight of Bruce sleeping in that chair looking so rumpled and poorly maintained made a few tears prick at his eyes. Stroking Bruce's knuckles carefully, he sighed, finally understanding that maybe he was too old to keep doing what he had been doing. They were both in their 40's pushing 50, and running around the city had been taking its toll on them for near 25 years.

"Jack. You're finally awake," Bruce breathed, as his eyes fluttered open. His voice was not alert, clouded by sleep, but the concern and relief were both present enough that the Joker grasped just how badly things had gone. "Never again, do you hear me? My heart can't take it," the rumpled billionaire added, his eyes sharpening.

"Believe me love, I understand. Just tell me, how long have I been out? How bad was it?" the man known as the Joker but called Jack winced at the question. Talking was painful, his lungs protested at the interruption of his normal breathing rhythm. He saw tears form and then fall from his companion's eyes, and wanted desperately to reach out and wipe them away. But his free hand was restrained by and IV and heart rate monitor.

"You were dead for almost three minutes. Your left lung had collapsed, apparently punctured by your fourth rib. They told me that your chest cavity filled with blood and nearly crushed your heart. It took some 12 transfusions to stabilize you and you were in surgery for almost as many hours. For three weeks afterwards you were on a respirator. After that, even though you were in a coma you were breathing on your own, still they told me not to hope," Bruce paused and wiped the profusion of tears from his face, aiming for dignity. "It has been nine weeks since the night I brought you here. All this time, they told me not to hope, not to dream. But you are Jack Napier, and my faith in your strength will never falter," the billionaire gave a grim smile and held that venom green gaze.

"Bruce…I'm so sorry. I'm an idiot. I'm such a fool. I almost didn't have a chance…"

"Hush. You don't have to say anything. Just promise me, be done," Bruce felt it when his voice got tight, tears once again threatening him.

"I'm done, love. I can't do it anymore. Not to you and not to myself. Nothing is as important to me as you are," Jack spoke with as much conviction as his hindered breathing allowed. Dimly he wondered just how long it was going to take for his body to get back to normal. Bruce gave a softer smile and leaned forward, gently pressing his lips against Jack's, letting the smaller man know that they were okay.

Jack allowed his eyes to slide closed and his lips to respond to the attention they were receiving. The warm pressure of his lover's lips was a welcome comfort, and truly Bruce was all he needed. He didn't need his old life, not if it was going to take him away from the only person he had ever loved. He should have stopped the moment that he realized that he finally had what he'd always wanted, Batman's heart. It should have made sense to make a life with the one man that would ever love him, the only man that he could love.

"I love you Jack, with all that I am. Every part of me loves every part of you. Understand that. Eight years I have been with you, been by your side. In a way, we've been together for these 25 long years," Bruce smiled and did not protest when Jack moved over and made room for him on the bed. "You've been everything to me. You've been my whole world all this time. This isn't the way I wanted to ask, but we've passed up our anniversary. Jack, there's one place you've yet to hold in my life. Jack Napier, I ask you who means the most to me, you who holds my entire heart, to be my husband," Bruce whispered, his lips close to his partner's ear. He had removed a plain silver band from the pocket of his dress shirt and held it out to Jack. His eyes were closed; he didn't want to have to see it if there was rejection in those emerald eyes.

"Brucey, of course I will be your husband. You can open your eyes darling," Jack breathed and allowed his lover to place the ring on his finger. A smile was playing across the soon to be retired villain's lips and Bruce couldn't help but return it. Sure the Joker had caused Gotham more pain and suffering than it had been worth at first. All Batman had wanted to do was lock him up or worse yet kill him. But as the years wore on and the maniacal clown stopped killing innocent citizens and went after mobsters and drug dealers, the Caped Crusader knew there was hope.

It had been a Saturday night, the first time Batman caught the Joker running around playing a hero. He had saved a young expecting mother from what would have been a violent mugging, and had done so humanely. From a distance he had watched his clown-faced foe take and dismantle the thug's gun all while leaving the miscreant unconscious and tied up on the ground. Then knowing eyes had trailed the roof tops until they met his own.

It only happened on occasion that the Joker became a hero, but it seemed that the more it happened the longer he would linger, holding Bruce's eyes. Only a few months after the first time, Joker had finally broken the routine of running away from him. He had approached the Caped Crusader with determination shining in his emerald eyes. Batman had frozen as he watched what he considered to be a changed man stalking toward him. Even when the clown was standing, for the most part, flush against him, Bruce didn't move.

"You never told me how much fun your job could be," the Joker had said, and how clearly Bruce remembered those words. But he remembered their next actions far more clearly. He had given a small smile, much like the smirk the clown wore, and then, both of them moved. The heat of the Joker's lips was startling and sudden. But his hands had kept him from pulling away, reaching up and twining through the Joker's hair and clutching the back of his jacket. The kiss remained chaste for the most part, though neither man was willing to be the first to pull away.

"Well now, you never asked," Bruce replied softly and kissed already ravished ruby lips once again.

They had then broken apart, as though nothing had happened and went on their separate ways. When he got back to Wayne Manor in the early hours he had found Jack, asleep in his bed. He knew him at once and it seemed that the Joker had known for an age that Bruce and Batman were the same person. It hadn't bothered him to slide into the king sized bed with the slender man (who had hijacked a pair of Bruce's pajamas) and hold onto him.

They'd been together ever since.

(A/N: There you go. Hope you liked it. I know it isn't much but it was an idea. I love you guys and your reviews, so thanks in advance for whatever it is you might say.)


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